Braga Reviews Season Two

Brannon Braga spoke about his assessment of the second season of Enterprise, criticising some episodes and reflecting on what he thinks works best on the series.

Trek BBS member 'Cyrus' provided a transcript of some of Braga's comments to the Star Trek Communicator, which included assurances that the Tholians and Tellarites are likely to return while the Borg are not.

"Carbon Creek", according to Braga, "had a very classic, humanistic theme that's very topical for today", and "First Flight" was intended to send a message to NASA about the importance of manned space flight. On the other hand, "Dead Stop" had more of "that great old Star Trek vibe", in that the episode aimed to be creepy and unexpected.

Though he stated that the plot twists in "Vanishing Point" and particularly "Cease Fire" might have been too obvious, Braga took pride in the temporal conundrum in "Regeneration": "What you end up with is a scrumptious little paradox, where this could have been the incident that informed the Borg of our existence."

Calling "Judgment", the Klingon trial episode, "one of those cases were it all came together", Braga spoke of the probable fate of Kolos, the sympathetic Klingon activist:

It was an opportunity to delve into what Klingons were like during this period in history. The warrior class had taken power and begun to corrupt a great society and turn it in an imperialistic direction. It was an interesting insight into Klingon culture. Of course the tragedy is that — as Star Trek fans know — this poor guy, Kolos, is doomed, because they never do change.

Braga lamented that "Marauders" really "didn't have anything to say", that "Canamar" emerged from "a script we had to write very quickly and it turned out to be a far better episode than it deserved", and that "The Crossing" had interesting visuals but "just didn't have meat."

He saved his greatest praise for season finale "The Expanse", calling the mysterious aliens who attack Earth "one of the coolest concepts we've had in a long time."

For more, please see this thread at the Trek BBS. Thanks to 'Cyrus' for the transcript.